


The Real War is You and I

by Starksus



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Assassination Attempt(s), Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Dark Steve Rogers, Dubious Morality, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, This is not a romantic fic Steve deserves jail time tbh, Tony Stark Has Issues, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:40:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starksus/pseuds/Starksus
Summary: “Did you come back all the way over here just to kill me?” Tony asks at last, voice surprisingly even.After everything he survived, after beating death and Thanos and death again, it would make sense that Steve’s war god complex would see him as the final battle. It’s scary that he is ready to let him win.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 14
Kudos: 95





	The Real War is You and I

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank Tawhida for making this readable in English. All mistakes are my own and my non-native English speaker self.
> 
> I wrote this because quarantine is killing me and I have a lot of frustrations. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> WARNING: This is a Dark!AU with dangerous and unhealthy behaviors.

The thing about sleeping with a war criminal is the inevitability of having them always running away. They have a solid excuse though; the whole incarceration with multiple federal charges and the promise of never feeling the sunlight again would be enough to keep anyone moving. So it is not exactly a case of personal disputes, and rationally, he knows that. But after one too many times of waking up alone, the used sheets drying in his skin and his ass cold and sore, he might start wondering if it is really the government they are running from and not the fear of facing him in the morning.

Steve Rogers is not Captain America anymore. The star on his suit — the one that used to shine and represent the country he fought for — is now a target on his chest and those he saved are the ones looking to fill it with bullet holes.

In retrospect, Tony should have expected Steve to go back and find him, only he didn’t. And when he did show up at his door with a dark beard covering half his face, his blonde hair pushed back and blue eyes hard, he almost had a heart attack.

What’s more, Steve isn’t even nice about it. _Just let me in_ , he says when Tony refuses to unlock the door of his lake house. _Calm down,_ he grumbles when he inevitably freaks out about the trail of blood he is leaving behind. _You don’t want to know_ , he mumbles absently when Tony demands to know where the fuck it came from.

The world ended, and Tony made it start again. All of The Rouges’ charges were dropped — only for Steve to start compiling a set of new ones, only this time his crimes were bloodier, more worrying. They couldn’t be brushed off, not even by Tony, who was practically a saint for a new universal religion.

So Tony is understandably perplexed. To his eyes, it doesn’t make any sense. He thought he had healed enough to understand where Steve was coming from in the so-called Civil War but now he only sees a man with no regard, much less an ounce of respect, for the order he had fought so hard to rebuild.

(Tony will never admit it to anyone, not even to himself. But having seen Steve at his darkest, ready to throw it all away in acts of violence for a cause that could’ve had a peaceful way out, he had understood that Steve never really liked being a soldier — he just loved a war.)

When Steve comes to stand right in front of him, Tony’s left hand is trembling, his heart is beating too fast for a man with his condition, and he thinks he might spontaneously combust if Steve keeps looking at him with his brow arched in mild irritation. He doesn’t. Because he has a feeling Steve would actually enjoy watching those flames lick his skin.

“Did you come back all the way over here just to kill me?” Tony asks at last, voice surprisingly even.

After everything he survived, after beating death and Thanos and death again, it would make sense that Steve’s war god complex would see him as the final battle. It’s scary that he is ready to let him win. But Steve’s response is to change his demeanor from irritated to amused.

He doesn’t get a reply, at least not a verbal one; he watches as Steve raises a hand and places it on his cheek, oddly serial-killer like, watching him with wide eyes and dilated pupils. He traces his bloody thumb softly on Tony’s lips, leaving a trail of blood on them, before he pushes it inside his mouth without a warning.

Tony, without giving it a second thought sucks on it, and suddenly there is electricity running between them, buzzing underneath their skins.

Fear gets replaced with arousal, and Steve’s thumb is replaced with his tongue. A moan gets ripped out of him and then, all too quickly, Steve is not touching him anywhere, he stands there, a tension creeping into the space between them. It takes Tony a few seconds to look up at him, his eyes shocked and pleading, already missing the warmth of his mouth; Steve turns around and just as fast as he arrived, he leaves. The tension disappears just as quickly as Steve’s silhouette in the night.

Tony blinks disoriented at the empty spot in front of him, breathing in and out slowly to get his erratic heartbeat back to some resemblance of normal. He wonders whether he should call his therapist or the FBI first.

In the end, he locks himself back into his workshop, trying too hard to dismiss everything that just happened as some kind of overworked hallucination. And honestly, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Denial would work perfectly fine except it happens again, and again, and again.

Steve is choking him, his big hand around his neck slowly cutting off the air supply while the other is spread on his ribcage. Tony inhales in and out, with the air entering his lungs decreasing with each breath as Steve’s grip slowly tightens. He should feel more scared, he thinks, he _is_ scared, and he has had multiple nightmares over the years with scenarios way too similar to this, but unlike the night terrors, Steve is not looking at him with void eyes. The solid and very much real Steve hovering over him, has eyes filled with wonder, fascination and arousal so thick you can barely see the blue in them. Perhaps that makes all the difference.

So Tony is scared because he will never fully stop fearing Steve, who has a blood count too high to keep a record of, who has fallen out of the universe’s highest pedestal and built himself a reputation of fear faster than any villain they had ever fought. But truth be told, at this moment that information seems irrelevant at best.

There is a fleeting second, which he might have missed had he not been hyper-focused on Steve’s every move, where he could see a murderous rage flick in his eyes. Easier than a shift of his hand, Steve could have just ended Tony’s life, but instead, he takes both hands out and spreads Tony’s legs and fucks him deeply and eagerly. And Tony knows there won’t be anyone else for him after this, that no one could manage to get his blood pumping so fast and his skin to feel like it is catching on fire after every touch. He wants to close his eyes at the overwhelming sensation but he would be damned if he misses the way that Steve looks above him, chest glistening with the tiniest layer of sweat and a faint blush making its way down his torso as he thrust into him with controlled force. Tony arches his back, mouth falling open as the force of his orgasm finally hits and that’s when he passes out.

Several hours later, when Tony wakes up alone, he is understandably worried at himself for being more disappointed at Steve for running off again than for having contemplated killing Tony the night before.

Tony is alive and alone, and both were Steve’s choices.

*

“Intelligence thinks he might be planning on coming back to the US,” Rhodey says, sliding a tablet for Tony to look at. His friend looks somewhere between worried, stressed out, and seconds away from throwing Tony over his shoulder and put away in a spaceship for the other side of the galaxy — the farthest away from Steve’s path. “He hasn’t dared to put a foot back in the country yet, but that might change any day now.”

It’s awkward, Tony will admit, because for some time now Steve’s feet have made the bi-monthly visit to his house and have been planted firmly on his bedroom floor while he put Tony against a wall fucking him. One hand holding Tony’s wrist, and the other three fingers down his throat, enjoying the sound of his moans mixed with the choking.

He shifts uncomfortably at the memory, hot blood rushing through his veins while he tries to look unfazed, giving a little nod like he agrees. But of course, Rhodey doesn’t look convinced.

“Tones,” he sighs, “promise me you would take him down if dared to come for you, or that you would alert me or the others if you uncover what he is really up to.”

Truth be told, he doesn’t know what in fucks name Steve is looking to accomplish these days, other than disappointing millions and making himself to be multiple governments’ biggest threat since Thanos himself. Tony has stopped asking, and Steve, of course, has never said.

“If it came down to it, I could take him.” he offers as reassurance.

He might have retired, but he will never stop being Iron Man. They both know that, but his friend is validly skeptical when he says, “I know you could; you’ve got extremis and Friday. The matter still is if you would do it.”

Tony knows he can’t tell him the truth.

*

“Why do you keep coming back?” Tony asks one night. He came home from having paid a visit to Peter only to find Steve on his bed and Friday playing a movie for him.

He doesn’t answer for a few seconds, his blue eyes glued to the screen. “Why do you keep letting me in?” he asks after the silence has stretched between them.

Tony scoffs. _You never gave me much of a choice,_ he wants to say, but he thinks back at his conversation with Rhodey and all the choices he can but will not make.

“Uh,” Tony mutters at last, taking a seat beside Steve in his bed. They have their lives lying in each other's hands.

They don’t fuck that night, just share the bed and watch old movies that they don’t pay enough attention to, too focused in the other’s breathing. It should be awkward, but Tony hasn’t been more at peace in years. Obsessing over Steve has been such a constant in his life that having him here, obsessing back is weirdly comforting. Tony doesn’t have enough years in his life left for a therapist to sort that out, so he might as well just let it be.

When he wakes up the day after, the disappointment and loneliness that he should be used to welcome him into the morning — but somehow are only getting more unbearable — are coming back when Friday interrupts his pity party.

“The Captain is currently in the kitchen drinking coffee.”

He blinks up at the ceiling, and if he were stupid or weren’t Tony Stark he would ask Friday to double-check that, but he won’t insult the intelligence of his own AI. So he gets out of the bed and walks into the kitchen to find that Steve is, in fact, sitting with a coffee mug on his kitchen table.

There is a lot he wants to ask, too much that it is making his throat close, and his anxiety spike up, so he opts for not muttering a word and stealing Steve’s coffee for himself.

He tells himself he has earned the right to be delusional, to think that this is a good thing for as long as it lasts. He lets himself enjoy the sound of Steve’s loud laugh, his dry humor slipping between their conversations, the small smiles that are now sweeter and more prominent after he shaved that beard a few days ago. He can’t help it but to encourage every touch, every smile, and every look that Steve sends in his direction. He soaks into the feeling of having Steve’s blue eyes reflecting his own joy every time they exchange glances.

It is so much like everything he dreamed and desired that Tony even starts wondering if perhaps he did die with the blast of the Infinity Stones, and this is his piece of heaven. Because Steve looks reminiscent of an angel now, with the sun kissing his pale skin and bringing an otherworldly glow that Tony can’t seem to stop looking at, eyes wide in disbelief that he really did stay another day.

When they kiss and Tony slips his tongue in the warmth of his mouth, he licks its insides softly and it is his favorite taste in the world. And when the night arrives again, and Steve’s body is pressed against his back, he closes his eyes and pretends the world is not burning up outside with a fire that the man he loves started.

A lot of mistakes are made, most of them in Tony’s part. He lets a wanted killer stay under his roof with no questions asked. He lets a fugitive steal touches and moans from his body, some he even gives more than willingly. He lets the most dangerous man he has met hold his heart so tight that he might as well be just squeezing it for all it has to give.

And then he lets himself be talked into giving a press conference, and there is the adrenaline of lying live in front of a camera, his tinted glasses are in place, and he clears his throat before he starts calling Steve names. _Dangerous_ he remarks twice, a _threat_ he slips between recalling the crimes that are public record by then, a _ghost_ he says at the end because they haven’t had a trace on him for too many days and they are worried he is plotting something bigger.

He gives a serious look at the reporters, promises that even though he retired, not a day goes by that he doesn’t worry about Steve Rogers’ actions, which is not necessarily a lie per se. But the feeling of so many trusting eyes on him, none of them holding the slightest doubt about what he can do, not when he practically died for them to live — makes the shame hit. At the end of the day, Tony has always been more inclined to be a sinner than a saint.

The sight of Steve still lying lazily on his bed when he comes back home is equal parts reliving and agitating. And then it is just entirely agitating when that night, Steve holds him by the neck a little too tight, a little too long and Tony blacks out.

Tony is not worried about death. He has seen it up close too many times for him to freak out about it like the regular folk, and right now he is fucked up enough to think if it would be right or poetic to be killed by the hands of his lifelong love.

He keeps on wondering even as he wakes up to a brand new day, feeling pathetically dead anyway because the left side of his bed is cold. With a numb body, he discovers that the rest of his house is just as unoccupied. Not a single trace left behind to hint that he was ever there, just like always.

If he thought Steve was capable of knowing any other form of torture that didn’t consist of physical or brute force, he would think that he spared his body just to kill his soul. But he won’t give the asshole that much credit, so he just forces himself into the shower and pretends Steve never came to his house. Therefore, he never left.

*

The bodies start appearing again, a trail of missing lives across Europe with no recognizable pattern, and the scenes are always messy and unsophisticated. It is almost always bad blood, that much Tony will give him, but it doesn’t take away the gruesome of his work and the fact that the rules of who gets to live or die are only known by Steve himself — everyone else is playing catch with a mouse they never bothered to make a trap for.

“If you hadn’t saved half the universe, The Avengers and every empowered being would be behind bars now with an electric collar around their necks.” Rhodey laments. The lines on his forehead are more pronounced lately. Life has not been kind to his friend, and it weighs him down that most lines Tony has carved there with his actions. “People are scared; they know Rogers isn’t the most powerful of us, and yet he has kept himself from getting caught for this long.”

There is a hint of accusation in the last sentence, as if Rhodey knows deep down that there is no way Tony wouldn’t know how to find Steve. But his friend doesn’t dare to be straightforward with it, and Tony pretends he doesn’t hear it.

Lately, all Tony does is pretend and pretend and pretend. He is used to doing it with the press and the public; he doesn’t own them a thing anymore. But pretending to Rhodey hurts, it’s not the first time that he has kept things from his friend to avoid conflict between what Tony feels is good, but Rhodey knows isn’t right. But above all, he is pretending to himself that everything is fine, and that is the most exhausting part.

It doesn’t matter how many times he tells himself _not again_ ; it only lasts until Steve shows up back at his doorstep.

“You left,” Tony accuses, but he doesn’t actually believe his eyes completely. He had been drinking that evening, nothing hard, just wine, but he has become a lightweight in his old age. The bottle of wine is still on his hand, barely empty by then, grounding and solid. He looks at it, looks back at Steve, and throws it right at his head, half convinced that it would go through him like a hologram.

“Tony, what the hell?’” Steve actually sounds surprised, moving at the last second to avoid the contact like it never crossed his mind that Tony would try to physically hurt him with something as mundane as a wine bottle, “Have you finally lost your mind?”

He feels his blood run hot while he screams, “Lost my mind? Fuck you, Steve. You don’t get to be condescending to anyone anymore, much less to me.”

“You are angry,” Steve observes and raises an eyebrow at him as if Tony’s behavior is unacceptable, like they are back at the avengers’ tower and Tony is being purposely obtuse and not like Steve just showed up out of nowhere at his house after eight months on the run from every government’s law.

Tony could strangle him right there. Right there on his porch. He takes on the dried blood under his nail, the nasty wounds by his chest that still haven't healed, and that little anxious tick on his right eye that makes Tony feel sick. And he can’t help but wonder how much his body count has risen.

He calls the Iron Man gauntlet, and he feels more determined than he has been in years. It has gone too far; this is how he ends it.

Steve just sighs tiredly, completely unfazed. “Why now, Tony?”

“You are too dangerous” He answers like it is obvious. It should be.

“You’re not mad at that,” Steve replies, putting his bloody hands up. It says a lot about how unbothered he has always been with what he became that he never tried cleaning himself up before showing up at Tony’s. “You’re mad that I left”

“You always leave,” Tony says, unwavering.

“And I always come back.” He replies, matter of factly.

Tony wavers. It is just for a second, but a second is more than enough for Steve Rogers to size up an opportunity and strike with his best shot. He runs at him and takes Tony down with the full force of his body, and the move is so fucking primitive that Tony is more annoyed at that than anything else for how it makes him lose his balance and breath.

Steve ends up sitting on him, and he blocks the memory of a lust-filled night where he rode Tony just like that. He chooses to press the gauntlet at Steve’s ear, ready to burn his skull and shoot his brains out.

“Do it then,” Steve whispers between them. And it is not challenging or mocking like Tony expects; instead, it is calm and accepting. For the first time since they met, Tony doesn’t see arrogance in Steve Rogers’ eyes.

Tony charges the repulsor, it illuminates the side of Steve’s face with a faint blue color, and it burns the skin of his ear a little. Tony knows it must hurt like a bitch, but Steve, the fucking psychopath, actually leans into it, as if reassured by it’s warm.

He mentally collects himself, feels like he is the one about to die, can practically see his life flashing behind his eyelids. He sees Steve and the life they had, the life they could have had, and the life that they are ending. This is the right thing to do.

“I love you.” Tony confesses but doesn’t realize it until his own words are rigging on his ears. The repulsor starts to burn hotter.

“I love you too.” Steve replies like it is obvious. It never was to him.

Tony counts to three, feels thrilled for a moment that he might actually win the war against the great Captain America-turned-murderer, but then without warning, he drops his hand to his side.

Steve blinks at him slowly, like he is coming out of the ice for a second time before chuckling and coming to lay down at Tony’s side, a pleased content smile on his face.

“I could still kill you,” Tony warns because it has to be said.

“If you do, it’s only because I let you,” Steve says easily, the self-assurance right back on him like it never left. He stretches his neck a little to look at his eyes when he continues, “Just like you would let me if I wanted to kill you.”

Tony opens his mouth, closes it again.

They leave it at that.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my life more bearable and I live for your Kudos. Find me in Twitter @ starksus_ I'm always willing to chat and cry about Tony Stark :)


End file.
